Roman Pasquale?
She air-kissed him, and once the valet opened the door, he stepped out of the car, and offered her his hand. He didn’t have any experience in courting a lady, but he had seen enough movies to know what to do.
Just another acting role.
He allowed himself to get caught up in the tide of glittering humanity as it poured towards the opening to the home of movie god Roman Pasquale. There were literally hundreds of people. Jack felt so small despite being treated a little bit special when they’d first arrived. It left him with the nagging feeling that Nick never would have been noticed had he come along. That it hadn’t been such a problem after all.
He stole a sideways glance at Trixie who still clung to his arm. Had she been delivering a message from the studio? Or from herself?
“Isn’t this excitin’, Jack? I mean, I been to some luxury-like places, but his is the best. I think all of Hollywood’s here too.”
Except Nick.
The momentary thrill he’d experienced when they’d first arrived and he’d discovered who the home belonged to was dampened. A gloom settled over Jack, and if he ever had any acting skills to speak of, the night ahead would test them. Just as they reached the entryway protected by filigreed iron gates, now swung open wide to allow every manner of person inside, a man stepped right in front of them with an enormous camera perched on a tripod, holding up a large dish-shaped flash which popped brightly—temporarily blinding them.
“Ugh. I guess we have to get used ta this, Jack.”
Still seeing spots, Jack tried to adjust his eyes to the indoors, and to also not step on anyone as he was shoved through the crowd. This wasn’t just a lavish mansion, or a garish display of wealth. This was pure elegance. The décor was streamlined and geometric. The objects d’art were distinct and dramatic. The colours of the home were muted—combinations of gold, bronze, black and pewter against a cream background. Jack had seen a play back in New York once about Greek gods. One had really stood out, and this was what Jack imagined Hephaestus, the god of metals, would do if he had an earthly home.
Surrounded by the press of many bodies, Jack found it almost impossible to move. He needed some air. The noise was unbelievable. The only positive thing about the crowd was that it seemed to absorb some of the loud, boisterous jazz music being offered up by a live band in the corner of whatever enormous room they were currently trapped in.
How can Pasquale stand having all these strangers tramping through his fine home?
Sweat broke out on Jack’s brow, and he wasn’t sure any type of acting prowess could save him from completely passing out if he didn’t make it outside soon.
“Trixie, I gotta get outta here.”
“Don’t be nervous, Jack, you’ll be fine.”
“No, I mean I need some air. I feel sick.”
“Oh God, Jack, don’t retch in here. Look, there’s a little balcony over there.”
Jack looked in the direction she pointed towards. It was off to the left, towards the side of the house. It was nowhere near the pool, food or booze, so no one was particularly interested in that area.
He elbowed his way through the throng, all pushing to the deeper recesses of the mansion. He broke free of the crowd and swiped at a large potted palm that was trying to block his escape with its wispy tendrils. He pushed down on the curled iron latch, and the door popped open.
Fresh air washed over his face, and he sucked it in. He closed the door almost all the way behind him as he stepped out onto the terracotta balcony, also inlaid with blue tile. It was all of four square feet, but it was just enough for him to stand by himself and have a moment’s peace.
A tiny glow near some bushes off to the side caught his eye. The home was built in a hillside, so even though it had seemed to be the ground floor where they entered in the front, as you moved farther into the house, the floor plan followed the natural descent of the hills. Where Jack stood, he was looking down onto another level to the left of the mansion.
The glow appeared again.
It’s someone smoking.
Another poor mug like himself trying to hide from the soul-destroying commotion on the inside. He could barely discern the outline of the figure. All he could tell from his vantage point of about twenty feet away, was that it was a man. There were decorative lamp posts outside, but their light only reached to the edges of the side yard. The cigarette was tossed on the ground and stepped on. He moved towards the light, and Jack could distinctly hear him sigh. It had to be a loud sigh—how else could he have heard him?
He was suddenly compelled to know who this person was who seemed to be plagued by the same melancholy as him. The gentleman was nearing the point where he would soon be illuminated, and Jack held his breath. Was the mystery man another acting hopeful like Jack? Did he work at the studios, and was forced to come to his party tonight too? Did he have a lover at home who was angry with him, and feeling abandoned? Jack caught a sob in his throat. The last thing he wanted to do was to be discovered staring at this fellow.
A slippered foot stepped into the beam of light in the ground, and the rest of him followed. He turned slightly towards the house, and the glow shone on his face.
Jack gasped.
Roman Pasquale.
Roman glanced up to where Jack stood in the shadows. Jack shrank back against the balcony door, and it made a clattering noise. Roman was hurrying around the side of the house, as if to cut through another entrance, and trap his gawker.
This night gets only worse.
Jack frantically pulled the windowed door open, and rushed to get back into the mass of people, to avoid being discovered. He stood on the edges of the crowd and a servant came by holding a tray filled with champagne glasses. Jack grabbed one and tried to act like he’d been rooted to that spot for hours. He gulped the bubbling liquid down and wiped his mouth. He looked nervously about and could see that everyone was so wrapped up in their own perceived grandeur that they paid no attention to him. He exhaled robustly, calmed down. Roman was in slippers, silk pyjama bottoms and a brocade smoking jacket. It was doubtful he was planning on coming inside to join the revelry.
What is he doing hiding from his own party?
The little hairs on Jack’s neck rose up. He had the sense that he was being watched. His back faced the wall, and he couldn’t imagine that anyone could be behind him. Laughing inside at his own imagination, he turned around to dispel his fear.
Jack started and almost cried out. It was fortunate that his glass was empty since he dropped it on the thick beige carpet. Another small balcony identical to the one he had just been standing in was farther to the left and behind him. Roman Pasquale’s barely lit face peered in at Jack, unseen by his many guests. Jack was frozen, and it wasn’t until the thinly moustached lip of the screen god lifted into a secretive smile that Jack realised his jaw was hanging open. Roman was the single most superb man he had ever seen. His filmed image didn’t even begin to capture his exotic beauty in person.
Jack whipped his head around and literally ran for the front door.
I have to get the fuck outta here. There’s no way that anyone can convince me that my absence will be noticed.
He didn’t understand why he was having such a powerful reaction to Roman, but he hadn’t wanted to be there ever since the fight with Nick. He never should have come. He’d let Trixie pressure him into it.
He ran to the Cadillac where the driver was leaning against the frame, enjoying a cigar.
“Let’s go.”
Jack didn’t even pause before he got in the back seat and slammed the door.
The driver dipped his head into the front window.
“Sir?”
“Now. I want to leave now.”
He had the bizarre feeling that Roman was coming after him.
Ridiculous.
“Come on—now!”
Other than a couple of fights with Nick, Jack had never, ever spoken to anyone like that before.
The driver slid in behind the wheel without a word. He started the car up, and made his way carefully through the maze of vehicles.
God, can’t he get this fucking thing to go any faster?
Just as they cleared the driveway, and were pulling onto the street, something drew his gaze. As they drove away, Jack could see Roman standing near the bushes, another lit cigarette in his hand. Jack closed his eyes until they got to the bottom of the winding hill. When he opened them again he almost had himself convinced that it had all been a hallucination, or possibly a ghost that looked like Roman Pasquale. It had all been very unsettling.
The farther away they drove, the more Jack was able to calm himself.
Trixie is gonna kill me.
He would send the car back for her, but the reality was that she would probably already have another ride home later on.
My home is with Nick. I don’t think I can handle this madness.
At last he arrived at the motel, and the episode at the party seemed like a fading nightmare. Feeling like an ass, he handed the driver a five-dollar bill, and asked him if he could head back to the party.
Jack felt like bounding up the stairs. He couldn’t wait until he could talk to Nick and tell him of his decision to forget all about the studio bullshit. He unlocked the door, his heart pounding with excitement. As soon as he opened it, he stopped in his tracks. He could tell immediately that something was wrong. Everything looked too neat and tidy somehow. No glass from the smashed ashtray. No clothes tossed over the back of the chair like usual. No cap on the dresser. But it was the bed. Nick wasn’t in it and it was made up perfectly.
He probably went out to get a drink after our fight.
It didn’t feel right, but Jack couldn’t place exactly what it was. He walked all the way into the room, and found himself drawn to the small closet. He opened the door, his hand trembling. The sobs came choking out of him even before the inside was all the way exposed. Not one stitch of Nick’s clothing hung on the rod. And the duffle that had carried all of their worldly belongings when they had headed west was missing.
Nick was gone.
Also available from Total-E-Bound Publishing:
Uniform Encounters: Set Ablaze
Morticia Knight
Excerpt
Chapter One
The heat was like a physical wall that hit Tom as he slid out of his red Jeep Cherokee at the road stop. He needed to take a piss pretty bad, and the grimy, beat-up gas station/convenience store was the first building he’d seen in the southern Arizona desert for a while. He wasn’t that far from Tucson, but his bladder didn’t care. The hell-hole stocked with fake Indian tourist trinkets that he was currently parked in front of would have to do.
He dropped down from the truck, landing on the dried barren ground, and allowed the scorching temperature to envelop him—immediately giving him the impression that he was being cooked. It was sort of like when he was a little boy in a small town near Austin, Texas, and his Grams would open the oven on one of her homemade berry pies. He would stick his head as close as he could and absorb the essence of the tart berries and buttery crust of the dessert, inhaling it completely in.
“Tommy!” his Grams would bellow. “You’re going to singe the hair off your eyebrows if you keep doing that!”
Then she would laugh a great big belly laugh, and wrap him in her arms, hugging and kissing on him. Too bad her son—Tom’s dad—had never picked up any of her habits. The first time his dad had caught Tom with his lips wrapped around the cock of one of his buddies from school, things had changed between them. His father never openly spoke of what he’d seen, but he would give Tom looks. Looks that said, “Why is my son one of ‘those’?”
When Grams died the year before, Tom had decided it was time to move on. Mom was long gone—cancer—and his brother had enlisted in the army right out of high school. Grams had been the only member of his family who had ever really loved him, even though she knew he was into guys. That was the thing. He was actually into girls too, which somehow seemed to bother his dad even more.
“Does that sweet thing you took out the other night know about your other tendencies? She seems like a keeper, but I don’t know if it’s right with you being the way you are an’ all.”
Statements such as that would roll around in his brain until sometimes he thought he’d go crazy. It got worse when he went through the programme and became a firefighter. It took a year, but an opening finally came up in town and, at twenty-five years old, Tom signed a three-year contract. Initially, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to go into wildfire fighting, or something else along those lines, but being a firefighter assigned to a station in the big city of Austin, but still near to his hometown, felt really great—at first. His dad started in on him almost the moment Tom announced he had been accepted. While Grams had been enthusiastic and proud, his dad couldn’t stop harping on Tom’s sexual orientation, as if that informed every single fucking thing he did in his life.
“Firefighter, huh? Are you sure you have the cojones for such a profession? Your brother is in the army and I’m proud of him. But he’s a real man. Actually, he’d probably make a great fireman too. You should get into cooking, or fashion, or something like that.” Then he would laugh as if he’d said the funniest thing anyone had ever said.
Tom had wanted to slam the screen door of his little wood-framed childhood home, and leave right then. But he loved his Grams too much, and there was the contract he’d just signed. He would have to pay the training academy back if he left before it was up, and he could forget about ever having firefighting as any type of profession again. So he stuck it out.
After a while, he settled into the job and how good it felt to be a part of something that involved helping other people. There had been intense moments when he was able to make a difference, and even if his dad hadn’t been proud, Grams had been. He’d even met someone—a guy who tended bar at one of the local hangouts. It had taken Tom some crafty inquiries to figure out that this guy might be open to a relationship with another man. Austin was at least a little more relaxed and liberal than many of the smaller Texas towns, but not by much. Besides, Tom had always been a private person. He thought it might be his dad’s attitude towards him, but he was just always careful.
Sam had seemed like an excellent match for him. They both liked the same outdoorsy things—hiking, fishing, camping and so on. Tom thought they’d made a good couple. Sam was a shaggy-haired, blue-eyed blond, fit, average height, and Tom was similar, except that he had dark brown curly hair. They were both in their mid twenties, and Tom started to think it might turn into something. He was ready to settle down with a good man or woman, and to start building his own life—one that didn’t include his dad.
But the maturity that had been foisted on Tom from an early age after losing his mom hadn’t served him well in his relationship with Sam. Tom might have been looking to have a stable home life with a long-term partner, but Sam definitely wasn’t. Tom had come home from his swing shift early one morning, and had walked in on an orgy. Sam was sucking the cock of one of their mutual friends, whist simultaneously taking it in the ass from someone who Tom had never even seen before. He couldn’t decide which was worse. At the same time, several other men were scattered about what Tom had mistakenly thought was their home, engaging in myriads of sex acts with one another. It hadn’t been a pleasant scene.
“Baby, I like you a lot. But I’m just not into this whole domesticated bliss scene right now, ya hear? I’m too young, and so are you. Have fun! Come on, sweet cheeks, join the party.”
Tom had wanted to vomit. Instead of taking Sam up on his offer, he had packed his bags, gone back home to Grams, and unfortunately, his dad.
“What’s the matter? You and gay boy have a lover’s spat?” More laughter.
Six more months. I just have to put up with his crap for six more months. Once the contract is done, I’ll take Grams and we’ll get the hell out of here. At this point,
I’ll do any job.
But things didn’t always go to plan, and his first disappointment had been losing Grams. After that, he’d found out it wasn’t going to be so easy to find another spot. It had taken a year to get in where he was, and he knew there was a list of guys anxious to step in the minute he was out. He had let his chief know that he wanted to get away from the area, and would even be willing to relocate as long as it was to a decent-sized city, with a similar climate and the great outdoors nearby.
The answer—albeit a temporary one—came from one of the guys at the station who had a friend in Mesa, Arizona—a Phoenix suburb—who had been injured on the job and would be out for two to three months. They needed someone with a minimum of two years’ in-the-field experience to fill in immediately, and Tom grabbed the chance. He threw whatever would fit into the Jeep and took off at the end of his shift with his chief’s blessing.
“We’ll miss you Tom, I mean it. You’re a good man. I’d tell ya the door was always open, but you know how that is. But I wouldn’t be against ya putting in for a spot if things don’t go your way out there, son.”
Tom had felt a little misty over that. He’d never known that the chief thought that much of him. Tom had always just put in his best at work. He wasn’t used to much in the way of encouragement or pats on the back, but did what he did for how it made him feel. And it felt good to do well and right. Now here he was, twenty-four hours later, less than a couple of hundred miles away from his new home. He’d worry about what was next when the two or three months were up later on. Right now, he needed a good long piss, and an ice-cold pop.
* * * *
Eric put his signature on the last of the divorce settlement papers, and slowly—almost reverently—put them back in the envelope. He would give them back to Charlene in the morning.
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